By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com
MICHAEL BARKER TO BECOME CO-CHAIRMAN, SUCCEEDING HERBERT S. SCHLOSSER, IN LEADERSHIP TRANSITION AT MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE
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MICHAEL BARKER TO BECOME CO-CHAIRMAN, SUCCEEDING HERBERT S. SCHLOSSER, IN LEADERSHIP TRANSITION AT MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE
Sony Pictures Classics leader to join Ivan L. Lustig as Co-Chairman of Board of Trustees; Herbert S. Schlosser to become Chairman Emeritus after 30 years of service
New York, November 10, 2014—Michael Barker, Co-President and Co-Founder of Sony Pictures Classics, will become Co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of the Moving Image. Herbert S. Schlosser, who was Chairman from 1985 to 2013, and Co-Chairman from 2013 to present, will retire after 30 years of service, it was announced today by Mr. Schlosser and Ivan L. Lustig, Co-Chairman. Michael Barker, one of the most respected and honored leaders in the film industry, will officially begin his new position on February 1, 2015. His election took place at a Board of Trustees meeting in late October. Mr. Schlosser had informed the board one year ago that he intended to retire, and a search was started to find a successor.
“Throughout his illustrious career, Michael Barker (with Tom Bernard) has brought to American audiences countless great films by established and emerging directors, and his films have earned more than 140 Academy Award nominations,” said Mr. Schlosser. “He is the best in the business, and is passionate about film and about the Museum’s mission, which focuses on all forms of the moving image, including television and digital media. He will be a great leader during this exciting period when the Museum is truly thriving and the moving image is undergoing a state of great change.”
“We are very pleased and happy to welcome Michael Barker as our new Co-Chairman,” said Mr. Lustig. “We are also very appreciative Herbert S. Schlosser will remain on the Board as Chairman Emeritus. Herb was the President and CEO of NBC. He joined NBC in 1957, and played an important role in the changes that have taken place in the industry. Among other accomplishments, he put Saturday Night Live on the air. He became Chairman of the Museum in 1985, was there when it opened to the public in 1988, and was a chief proponent of the Museum’s transformative 2011 expansion. Under his leadership, the Museum has become a successful, internationally recognized institution encompassing film, television, and digital media.”
“Museum of the Moving Image is a great institution devoted to motion pictures of all shapes and sizes. Filled on any given day with hundreds of school kids, teachers, tourists, New Yorkers, from the general public to the die-hard cinephile, there is an incredible energy to the place. Its programs and exhibitions are exemplary, and this is an institution that serves the public and community first. Filmmakers, artists, and industry practitioners adore it as much as I do. I am honored to have been chosen as Co-Chairman to succeed Herbert Schlosser, who has been a tireless champion on behalf of the Museum from its very start, and to work with Ivan Lustig,” said Mr. Barker.
About Museum of the Moving Image
Museum of the Moving Image (movingimage.us) advances the understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media. In its stunning facilities—acclaimed for both its accessibility and bold design—the Museum presents exhibitions; screenings of significant works; discussion programs featuring actors, directors, craftspeople, and business leaders; and education programs. The Museum also houses a significant and comprehensive collection of moving-image artifacts. With plans for the opening of a new permanent gallery in late 2015 devoted to the art of Jim Henson, the Museum continues to grow as one of New York City’s great cultural destinations.
About Michael Barker
As Co-President and Co-Founder of Sony Pictures Classics, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2012, Michael Barker, together with Co-Founder Tom Bernard, has distributed, and quite often produced, some of the finest independent movies over the past 30 years. Previously he was an executive at United Artists (1980–1983) and went on to co-found Orion Classics (1983–1991) and Sony Pictures Classics.
Over the span of his career, Barker’s films have received 140 Academy Award nominations including several for Best Picture: Amour; Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s most successful film of all time; An Education; Capote for which Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Academy Award for Best Actor; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, recognized as the highest grossing foreign film of all time in North America; and Howard’s End. His companies’ Academy Award nominations resulted in 32 wins (most recently Cate Blanchett for Best Actress for Blue Jasmine), including five for Best Documentary Feature, most recently for Searching for Sugarman, Inside Job, and Fog of War, and twelve for Best Foreign Language Film which include Babette’s Feast, All about My Mother, The Lives of Others, A Separation, and Amour. Other notable award wins include 36 Independent Spirit Awards and 19 Golden Globe Awards.
Mr. Barker has collaborated with some of the world’s finest filmmakers including Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Mike Leigh, Louis Malle, and Zhang Yimou, all of whom he has worked with on multiple occasions, as well as Robert Altman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Francis Ford Coppola, David Cronenberg, Guillermo del Toro, the Dardenne brothers, Jonathan Demme, R. W. Fassbinder, Michael Haneke, Nicole Holofcener, Akira Kurosawa, Ang Lee, Richard Linklater, Errol Morris, Francois Truffaut, and Wim Wenders.
Among the films that Sony Pictures Classics is releasing this year are Foxcatcher, Mr. Turner, Whiplash, and Still Alice.
In recognition of his work, Mr. Barker has received numerous honors and awards. Most recently, he and Mr. Bernard were awarded the esteemed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor from the French government in acknowledgment for their contributions to French culture over the past 30 years, as well as the Spirit of Independence Award from Film Independent at the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival. They were also recipients of the Museum’s inaugural Envision Award in 2013, as transformational leaders in film.
In addition to serving on the Board of Trustees of Museum of the Moving Image, Mr. Barker is on the Entertainment Media and Technology Dean’s Advisory Board at the NYU Stern School of Business, the Visiting Committee to the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago, and has served as Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts Graduate Film Program. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Texas.
About Herbert S. Schlosser
Herbert S. Schlosser has been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Museum of the Moving Image since 1985. In November 2013, he became Co-Chairman, sharing duties with Ivan L. Lustig. During his 30-year tenure, Mr. Schlosser oversaw the opening of the Museum, in 1988, and the opening of the current renovated building in 2011 which doubled the size of the institution. Mr. Schlosser spent 30 years at NBC and RCA in a career that spanned both business and programming. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Broadcasting Company and, after that, as Executive Vice President of RCA Corporation in charge of its entertainment group of activities other than NBC. At RCA, reporting to him were RCA Records, and RCA’s participation with ABC and the Hearst Corporation in the creation of the Arts and Entertainment Network. He also negotiated the creation, with Columbia Pictures, of RCA/Columbia Home Video, one of the largest home video companies in the world.
At the NBC Television Network, as Vice President in charge of the business affairs department, he personally negotiated a number of high-profile agreements, including those with Bob Hope and Johnny Carson. Mr. Carson’s agreement brought him from ABC to become the host of The Tonight Show. Mr. Schlosser negotiated the acquisition of the 1964 Summer Olympics, the first Summer Olympics ever broadcast by NBC; broadcast rights for NFL Football and Major League Baseball; as well as NBC’s broadcasts of such popular television series as Star Trek and I Spy.
As head of NBC’s West Coast program department from 1966 to 1972, Mr. Schlosser was involved in the development of such successful programs as Laugh-In, The Bill Cosby Show (Cosby’s first half-hour series), Flip Wilson, Ironside, Julia, Name of the Game, Sanford and Son, and NBC Mystery Movie, an umbrella series which included Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife. He was also involved in the development of many of NBC’s made-for-television motion pictures broadcast under the title of World Premiere. NBC was the first network to broadcast made-for-television movies. Among his stellar accomplishments was putting Saturday Night Live on the air, and the commissioning of the award-winning mini-series Holocaust.
In addition to serving on the Board of Trustees of the Museum, Mr. Schlosser is a member of the Board of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame in 2000. He received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Princeton University and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
